go negative

present singular third person goes negative · participle present going negative · past went negative · participle past gone negative

1. USgovernmentTo focus on attacking political opponents rather than promoting oneself.

   We also found that gubernatorial candidates went negative on Twitter.

   2016, Yasmin Ibrahim, Politics, Protest, and Empowerment in Digital Spaces, page 187

   3 more examples

   After losing several primaries and facing a campaign debt of $250,000, his associates persuaded him to go negative.

   2008, Lynda Lee Kaid, Christina Holtz-Bacha, Encyclopedia of Political Communication, volume 1

   All four of the principle candidates in the 2008 presidential election “went negative” in their acceptance addresses.

   2011, Judith S. Trent, Robert V. Friedenberg, Robert E. Denton (Jr.), Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices (page 235)

   The goal of this chapter is to situate our work in the broader literature on negative campaigning, as well as to address a key question: why do candidates have to go negative?

   2015, Kyle Mattes, David P. Redlawsk, The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning, page 24